In So Many Words
by K Hanna Korossy
Summary: Long-Distance Call missing scene: The crocotta got to Sam with more than just a baseball bat.


**In So Many Words**  
K Hanna Korossy

There it was, just one among many neatly named files: J Winchester.

Sam stared at it, arrow perched on the file icon, teeth masticating his lower lip. But he didn't click.

The motel room door swung open, and Sam tensed, looking up, relaxing only when he saw his brother step in. "Hey."

Dean's gaze swept the room automatically before returning to where Sam was slouched against his headboard, one leg tucked close to him as he stared at the laptop. Dean nodded at the machine. "You sure you're up for that?"

Sam curtailed the eye roll for the sake of his headache, merely flattening his mouth in irritation. "Dude, I'm just reading."

"Yeah, well, if you hork all over the keyboard, I'm not cleaning it up." Dean tossed his jacket aside and dropped a small brown paper bag by Sam's knee. "Got you some crackers and soup."

"Thanks." Food actually didn't sound bad, despite the fact that the laptop screen occasionally went out of focus and his stomach felt like he was on a boat in choppy waters. Sam reached for the bag, slowing when he noticed Dean was otherwise empty-handed. "You're not eating?"

Dean shrugged utterly unconvincingly. "Ate at the diner."

Sam raised an eyebrow that said he wasn't fooled for a second but didn't push it. Dean's confession the night before of how scared he was of Hell was more honesty than Sam had expected, and, frankly, more than he knew what to do with. He could back off a little now, let them both take comfort a while in pretending. Swallowing a sigh, he dug out the Styrofoam container of soup and plastic spoon and turned back to the laptop.

J Winchester.

The crocotta had said it'd collected emails and phone messages and texts, including from their dad. Sam had thought it just meant through the weird mechanical telepathy the creature seemed to have going for it, but he'd checked out "Clark's" office nonetheless…and found an external drive full of surprises. There had to be hundreds of people's electronic records on it, including his and Dean's. Sam had erased those without a second glance, intending to do the same to all the other potential victims the crocotta had marked…until his eyes had caught on one file.

He slid a glance up at Dean, who had his journal out and was taking notes on something. Maybe the false exorcism he'd gotten the other day from their false dad, or maybe more notes for Sam after…after Dean was gone. At any rate, Sam didn't want to disturb him, and didn't want to be disturbed for what he was about to do.

He clicked on the file.

There were dozens of emails, which was a surprise. Dad hadn't exactly been tech-savvy, not beyond what went into the Impala, anyway. Sam certainly had never gotten an email from him. But there was a whole log of messages to Pastor Jim, Caleb, a few other hunters, one even to Bobby. The majority, however, were to Dean.

A bite of soup and another glance at his preoccupied brother, and Sam brought the first email up.

It was dated September 2002: the month Sam started at Stanford, and apparently when Dad had started using a computer. All it said was, _Dean, pull yourself together and get out here to Macon. I need you for a job._

That was it. Sam blinked. _Pull yourself together? _That needed no explanation, lance as it did through Sam's chest. But Dad wasn't with Dean? Sam knew they'd split up for some hunts later, that Dean had spent more time alone than he'd liked or admitted, but Sam hadn't thought it had started that early.

He opened a second email, this one from March of the next year. _Stopped by CA - S's fine. Poltergeist taken care of yet?_

Sam swallowed, calling up another email, then another.

They were all work-related. Few had personal notes beyond remonstrations that Dean shape up somehow. Most hinted they were working different jobs in different states.

Meanwhile, Dean had moved on to looking something up in Dad's journal. They relied on that resource less these days than when they'd first started, but Dean had never stopped returning to its pages for new insights and wisdom. Sam watched him a moment, then pulled his ear buds out of his satchel and started in on the voice messages.

The voicemails weren't timestamped, and some of them were to Sam before Stanford. He sifted through them with an old pang of grief and moved on.

The messages to Dean were a little more personal this time, some calls about picking up food or meeting someplace. One was an irritated order for Dean to "ditch the girl and get your ass back here," pulling a smile from Sam. There was another about checking on Sam at Stanford, and two that implied Dean had swung by Palo Alto. A few "good jobs" littered the messages, but they held little warmth, encouragement, support.

The texts were more of the same, many of them nothing more than coordinates.

This was it? Sam rubbed a hand slowly up and down his pants leg. This was the sum total of John Winchester's electronic legacy? Sam had gotten more personal messages from his dad before the rift between them became unbreachable. But that just made the aloof tone John took with Dean even more obvious. Sam dragged the spoon through the soup, staring blindly at the cloudy surface. This was what he'd been jealous of his whole life?

He'd been so anxious to save Dean this last year, grasping at any straw, looking into every possibility no matter how ridiculous. But when John Winchester had seemingly called from beyond the grave to offer Dean a way out…Sam hadn't even considered that it could be legit. Well, okay, yeah, he'd looked into the exorcism, tried to trace the phone call, talked to Bobby. But he hadn't really given it serious consideration. Yes, it seemed highly suspicious, and yes, it seemed tied to the deaths in their case, and yes, he didn't want Dean to be let down, again.

Way down deep, however, some part of him had also been…jealous. That Dad only called Dean, that he didn't trust Sam to figure this out. Dean had always been the good son, the one who stuck with John, who'd gotten an extra seven years with him, who'd been his second in command, who'd gotten to say goodbye. Sam was the rebel, different in ways he didn't understand until recently, a constant disappointment and aggravation. He'd always wanted Dad to look at him the way he looked at Dean, and John never had.

But maybe that wasn't as much of a prize as he'd thought. John and Dean's _special_ relationship had apparently been stripped down to a mostly paramilitary one after he'd left, orders given and received, brief check-ins and updates. John had probably been glad to be rid of the dissension in the ranks and get back on mission once Sam was gone. There'd surely been some father-son moments in person, but still. If anything, this was less intimate than Dad had been with him, because Sam had always pushed for more. Dean hadn't…and John hadn't filled in the gap.

No wonder his brother had been so hungry to believe his dad was doing the impossible to save him. All Dean had ever wanted was his family's love. Sam pressed his eyes shut, chest aching vaguely from commiseration, self-pity turned outward.

"Sam?" The container of soup was plucked from his hand and Dean was suddenly in front of him, bending worriedly to meet his eyes. "You with me?"

"Yeah," he said hoarsely, nodding. "Yeah, 'm here."

Dean's head tilted. "You're lookin' a little green there, Sammy. How 'bout we put the toys away now and take a little nap, huh?"

Sam made a face. "I'm not three, dude." But he let Dean's hand push him down flat. Truth be told, his head felt too tight, like it was going to pop at any moment. He buried his overheated face in the cool pillow.

"Hold on, I'm gonna get you some pills."

It was an echo of the night before, when Sam had gotten up from the bed, groaned and pinched his nose, then thrown up at Dean's feet.

"_What the—? You getting drunk offa one beer now, Sam?" Dean was holding his arm with one hand, the other going around his back to steady him. _

_No, not to steady him: to slide up into his hair, and Sam hissed as fingers found the sensitive lump low on his skull. Dean was suddenly crouching in front of him to see into his face. "Sam? Hey, tell me how the crocotta took you down again?"_

"_Baseball bat," Sam muttered through clenched teeth. _

"_Great. Next time how about you mention that to me_ before _we knock back a few?" He steered Sam a slow step back, then down to the bed. "It get you anywhere else?"_

_Sam flinched at the change of altitude. "Uh, wrists—ah! Right there. And, uh, some bruises, nothing big." _

"_Yeah, well, considering the mess you left on the carpet, you better let me be the judge of that." Experienced hands eased him down on the bed without putting pressure on the back of his skull, lifted his legs, then slid his sleeves up. He heard Dean's sympathetic hiss over the thumping in his head. _

_Ten minutes later, he had an icepack against his head, fresh gauze around both wrists, and Dean was sliding a pillow up against his bruised ribs. Then he patted Sam's stomach. _

"_Hold on, I'm gonna get you some pills…" _

Dean was pressing little ovals into his palm. Sam raised them to his mouth, then blindly accepted the bottle he was offered next. It was the squeeze kind, no sitting up needed. Dean always thought of stuff like that.

The bed sagged a little to one side as Dean perched on the edge, Sam's body tilting into the dip, resting against Dean's knee. Sam rubbed his forehead a moment, then sighed and dropped his hand. "I just need a few minutes, then we can go, all right?" He squinted up at Dean.

Who was studying him right back, but just shrugged when he caught Sam's eye. "No rush. Got no cases or leads waiting for us."

Yeah, just a local cop Dean had tried to kill in his home the day before, but Sam wasn't going to bring it up. Dean felt bad enough about it as it was, and Sam got the idea the guy wouldn't be coming after them anyway.

"I was thinking about staying another day," Dean was continuing, stretching a stiff arm with a wince. He'd gotten beaten up the day before, too, Sam was reminded again, not that something like that had ever slowed Dean down. No, this show was all for Sam. The sacrifice of one precious day of the few left. _Got no leads… _

Sam caught his brother's sleeve as Dean started to rise. He immediately sat back down, eyebrow rising at Sam. "I just…I wanted to say…I'm not giving up on this, all right? And neither should you. We'll figure something out."

There was a flash of such bleakness in Dean's face that it physically hurt to see it, and the fake smile that quickly followed did nothing to ease Sam's ache. "Yeah, I know you will," Dean lied through his grin.

"I'm not finished," Sam said doggedly, pushing up on an elbow. Crap, that hurt, but it didn't matter.

"Sam—"

"No, just…just listen to me for a second, all right? We're gonna figure this out, I know it, and if…if I can't find a way before the deal comes due, then I just want you to know…I am not leaving you there. I _am _gonna find a way to save you, Dean, I swear, even if I have to build my own Colt and go into Hell after you."

Dean stared at him, eyes darting over every inch of Sam's face like he was looking for the edges of the lie. And Sam _would_ have lied even if to just make these last few weeks easier, but he'd never meant anything more in his life and he needed Dean to see it. To know he mattered. To hear outright that he was loved.

Maybe Sam was too much like John, but in this he refused to follow in the old man's footsteps.

Here was the point where Dean would usually make a crack and break the tension, but this was too serious, too close for that. Instead, something sparked deep in the hazel eyes, and Dean nodded, head dropping and throat working. "Okay." He sounded a little choked. "Okay, Sammy."

"Okay," Sam whispered, sealing the pact, and lay back on the bed with a sigh.

He didn't envy Dean now. Maybe he'd had more of a relationship with John than their communications suggested; their dad had even given his life for his eldest. But Dean had lost everything else along the way, and all either of them had left now was each other. It was why he couldn't honestly blame Dean for having made the deal in the first place. And it was why Sam needed to get him out of that deal now.

Dean's hand flattened tentatively against Sam's ribs, a silent promise he wasn't alone.

And Sam closed his eyes and leaned into his brother's hold, as he had all his life, promising it back.

**The End**


End file.
